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Friday, November 2, 2012

2012 World Series Champions: San Francisco Giants are the perfect model of a team

Winning the championship twice in three years is
a feat in any sport, but baseball in particular. In basketball, teams are often
defined by the individual superstar—from Bill Russell to Larry Bird to Kobe
Bryant and LeBron James. In football, you live and die with your quarterback,
as Tom Brady, Ben Roethlisberger, Drew Brees, and the Manning brothers have
shown.

But in baseball, even the best hitters come to the plate
only once every nine at-bats. Even the best starting pitchers can only throw
every five days. This fact may have something to do with the decline in
popularity of baseball over the past decade…but we’ll leave that discussion for
another day.

For now, it is time to give credit to the 2012 World Series
champion San Francisco Giants.

Quite honestly, as a fan and a San Francisco Bay Area
native, I am stunned that they have managed to pull this off—but in only the
best way. After the BALCO scandal, I could not see how they would dig
themselves out of a hole that baseball had finally decided to clean up. But
they have done just that, and more.

It’s nothing short of utterly remarkable for a team that had
only two returning position players from the 2010 championship team.

The Giants have had the never-say-die attitude for more than
just an incredible playoff run. They’ve had it for the decade since they lost
to the then-Anaheim Angels in the 2002 World Series. Now they have two World
Series trophies to show for it.

(On a side note, I found it odd that Joe Buck and Tim
McCarver failed to mention once that was the second time the Giants and
Cardinals have met in the NLCS since 2000. Not only that, the Giants won in
seven games both times…but I’ve already established
a position on their suspicious ascent to becoming MLB playoff
announcers for FOX.)

There are so many ways to approach how great the Giants were
this year—and to be honest, I would argue that 2012 team was one of the greatest
in baseball history. You cannot pinpoint one hero because Marco Scutaro,
Pablo Sandoval, Tim Lincecum, and many others
played pivotal roles in their march to a second title in three years.

Game 4, the World
Series clinching game, is the perfect place to turn to. Within one game,
the Giants embodied a lot of what they represented in 2012. You’re more than
welcome to let me know what you think in the comments, but give this extended metaphor
a shot…

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Bruce Bochy stuck with his season-long ace for the Game 4
start. Matt Cain had been struggling
mightily earlier in the playoffs, but Bochy was not phased. He had stuck
with Tim Lincecum throughout the regular season despite his struggles, and he
was going to stick with his ace in the postseason. The trust within the
organization was not limited to the 25 players on the roster, but the coaching
staff also had faith in their guys (see Madison Bumgarner’s Game 2 start).

What does Cain do? Throw seven solid innings, battling
through a Miguel Cabrera home run that traveled 350 wind-assisted feet. (There
is no way that would have been anything but a fly-ball out at AT&T Park in
San Francisco.)

Then there’s Buster Posey. Although the consensus National
League MVP had a postseason average more than 100 points lower than his .336
regular season average, he quietly called brilliant games for the pitching
staff. Something I found overlooked was his ability to work with Barry Zito and
Tim Lincecum throughout their appearances during the playoffs. Why? For the
majority of the season, Hector Sanchez caught the two former Cy Young award
winners.

Of course, Posey managed to make it work when it mattered
most. As I have said
before, you will be hard-pressed to find another player in all of MLB with
a higher baseball IQ than San Francisco’s All Star catcher.

Game 4 in particular, Posey showed up. After the
triple-crown winning Miguel Cabrera went yard in the third inning, it looked
like the Giants might have to wait until Game 5 to beat the Detroit Tigers. But
only three innings later, Buster Posey made his statement.

A two-run homer that wrapped around the left-field foul pole
made up for the long list of strikeouts that Buster had been accumulating over
the postseason. The heart and soul of the Giants organization made the
statement that they had been making all season long: we’re not done yet.

Even though the Tigers were quick to respond and tie up the
game, there was a feeling that something good was still bound to happen. Hunter
Pence’s fiery pre-game speeches had led the assault from a 2-0 deficit to the
Reds in the NLCS—a tie ballgame in the sixth inning? No problem.

This was in large part due to San Francisco’s outstanding
bullpen. Going from Jeremy Affeldt to Santiago Casilla to Sergio Romo without a
run in the eighth through 10th innings has managed to become expected—even in
the wake of a Brian Wilson season-ending injury. A closer-by-committee
bullpen gave way to a stellar Sergio Romo whose antics mirrored that of Brian
Wilson, from the beard to the hilarious dugout scenes even to the unique post-save
celebration.

But before we get to the bottom of the tenth inning, the
Giants offense deserves even more credit. They made the league’s best pitcher
look like a rookie. Pablo Sandoval’s ownership of Justin Verlander in Game 1 came in the form of two home runs against the former Cy Young and MVP award
winner. The Panda was and is intimidated by nobody. However, Game 4 saw a less
impressive 1-for-5 performance with two strikeouts from Sandoval.

The Giants offense as a whole was there to pick up the man
who would become the 2012 World Series MVP. The final box score tallied nine
hits for the San Francisco Giants—from eight different players.

And the (second) most important one came in the top of the
tenth inning from Ryan Theriot, who was starting his first professional game at
DH. Theriot did not have a consistent contribution to the Giants in 2012, but
his lead-off single in the tenth inning was an all too perfect representation
of the little guy stepping up. He didn’t care that it was an extra-inning game
against a flame-throwing lefty who had struck out the past six Giants he had
faced.

He had a job to do and went out and executed it.

Brandon Crawford was the next batter that Phil Coke faced.
Crawford’s brilliant defense has become his signature, but he quietly had some
big at-bats for the Giants. And this situation called for a bunt, something
that Crawford had had very limited experience with.

Like Theriot, he got the job done.

The bunt that Crawford laid down was not quite as flashy as
Gregor Blanco’s one earlier in the World Series that tip-toed the third base
foul-line, but he moved Theriot to second base. Two batters later, Marco
Scutaro stepped to the plate.

If there is any single player that bests represents the
Giants 2012 run, it would be Marco Scutaro. Nicknamed “Blockbuster” as a play
on the fact that he was the Giants acquisition after the Dodgers dealt for Carl
Crawford, Josh Beckett, and Adrian Gonzalez, Marco Scutaro had a greater impact
than all three of those players combined. Nobody in baseball had more hits than
him from the time the Giants acquired him.

And in the playoffs, Scutaro was cold-blooded. He was an
assassin at the plate who got every big hit the Giants needed from him. All too
perfectly, it came down to him in the bottom of the tenth inning with two outs
and Ryan Theriot on second. (It nearly reminds me of Dave Roberts on second
with Bill Mueller at the plate in the 2004 ALCS, but maybe this metaphor thing
is starting to push its limits…)

Chills still shoot down my spine when I think of Marco
Scutaro’s single back up the middle. He had done it. Again. Ryan Theriot’s emotion after scoring the final run in the
World Series said it all: it’s us
against the world and we’re about to do it again.

As expected, Bruce Bochy gave the ball to Sergio Romo. Maybe
the most underrated reliever in baseball, in over 130 appearances since 2011,
Romo’s regular season ERA is less than 1.75—and
his fastball doesn’t even hit 90 MPH.

Opposing hitters know Romo’s going to throw a slider and it’s
still untouchable—eerily reminiscent of Mariano Rivera’s renowned cut-fastball.
Romo threw four straight sliders against Austin Jackson, the first batter in
the inning. End result? Strikeout.

Romo followed that strikeout with another one for the second
out of the inning. And with two outs, how perfect that 2003 World Series
champion Miguel Cabrera stepped to the plate, having launched a home run only
four innings earlier.

Five sliders later, the count to Cabrera was 2-2. With the
sixth pitch in the at-bat, Romo threw…a
fastball.

Buster Posey jumped before the umpire could even ring up
Cabrera. A four-seam fastball at 89 MPH on the outside corner. Even the Giants’
dugout was probably surprised that Romo elected not to throw his nasty Frisbee slider.

This final pitch mirrors the surprise that baseball felt
when San Francisco manhandled a team that had just swept the New York Yankees.
For the second time in three years, the Giants proved to be the best team in
baseball.

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Six playoff wins in elimination games and a sweep of the
best team in the American League.

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